The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has heard this Tuesday for the first time a woman who was the victim of sexual violence in her adolescence by a family member. The Colombian Brisa de Angulo Losada denounces that she was 15 years old the first time that her cousin Eduardo de ella, 27, sexually abused her in her house, in the Bolivian city of Cochabamba. “She raped me every day for eight months and brainwashed me so I wouldn’t say anything to anyone,” she says hours after testifying at the first public hearing. In the Angulo Losada vs. Bolivia case, this Wednesday she will testify again about the events that occurred two decades ago and for which she has unsuccessfully sought justice in the country where she grew up.
Angulo Losada recounts that, coerced by her cousin not to speak, she developed bulimia and anorexia and attempted suicide twice. Her parents, alarmed but not suspecting what was happening, took her to a psychologist, to whom she dared to reveal her abuse for the first time. “Like most victims of incest, I didn’t know that what was happening to me was a crime. I hated him, I told him I didn’t want to, but I didn’t have the information to know that it was a crime. If I thought about sexual violence, I imagined a dark alley, a stranger, not a person in the family who took care of me and trusted me, “he says by phone, before adding that more than 70% of sexual abuse in childhood occurs in the family environment.
Her parents believed her and did their best to help her, but the rest of the family did not. “My uncles, grandparents, cousins, they turned their backs on me. Still to this day, when she gave testimony at the IACHR, an aunt and a cousin kept saying horrible things, like that I am a liar,” she says, hurt. Disbelief on the part of the family and covering up the aggressor are common, emphasizes her lawyer, Bárbara Jiménez, from the NGO Equality Now. “Many times the families protect and the victims are left alone,” adds the defender. This distrust makes it even more difficult for children and adolescents to break the silence.
Justice did not believe him either. She says that the professionals who carried out the forensic examination made fun of her, the prosecutor blamed her for the rape and the judge reduced the accusation of rape to statutory rape, a crime present in 17 criminal laws in Latin America and which carries a lesser penalty. “They always treated me the same way, as a liar, saying that I did everything possible to seduce him. They blame girls and adolescents for having done something to deserve this violence”, she denounces. Twenty years later, the accused is still free.
Failing to obtain justice before the national courts, De Angulo Losada took his case to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. As part of her struggle, she founded the first center in Bolivia for the comprehensive care of child survivors of abuse and became a lawyer to defend them and do everything possible to prevent new victims.
“I feel very emotional to be heard after so many years of struggle,” she describes when speaking about her statement at the public hearing. Unlike what she experienced in the Bolivian courts, she highlights “the dignity” with which she has felt treated by the members of the IACHR. “I am not asking for money or compensation, but for judicial reforms that make sure that other children do not go through what I went through. My dream is for the IACHR to establish international legal standards so that Latin American countries can prevent these situations for children and adolescents,” she adds.
No use of force
Among the petitions presented to the Court is to change the definition of the crime of rape. “We want it to be based on the lack of consent and not on the use of force because it leaves out coercive situations where the use of force is not present, such as in incestuous relationships, abuse of power or when the victim is under the effect of substances”, explains Jiménez. This is the case of his client: “There was intimidation, he told her that if he told his father, he would feel embarrassed and that he would do the same to his sisters.”
Another objective is to ensure that this type of crime does not prescribe and that there is mandatory training both in schools and in the different state institutions.
The complainant believes that the irruption of feminism in the continent and the rise of movements such as #MeeToo or #YoTeCreo have helped make cases of sexual violence against women and minors visible and have contributed to some social and judicial progress, but In his opinion, much remains to be done. “Personally I think the changes are very slow, it’s frustrating,” she says. Still, she hopes her case is one more step in that direction.
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